June 22, 2012

Although the largest increase in population numbers is expected in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, our results suggest that population increases in the USA will carry more weight than would be implied by numbers alone," researchers wrote.

You know, I don't think an extra 242 million people sounds like that much. (Only 17 million tons!) But — and this is a big but — if these oversize people are in the U.S., they're going to move around in cars, and the more weight they move, the more fossil fuel they consume, the bigger the carbon footprint. So extra weight in America has a greater environmental effect than extra weight in places where people don't engage in so much commuting and traveling.

I'm more worried about the effects of rice paddies and cow farts on global warming. We have an impending disaster on our hands, you know.

I'm 60 lbs heavier now, than in high school when I was painfully skinny. But, I eat half as much. Where am I coming out on the balance sheet of climate change? I don't each much rice but I do enjoy beef.

"So extra weight in America has a greater environmental effect than extra weight in places where people don't engage in so much commuting and traveling."

Except that isn't true except in a moment in time, and not a continuum. The hard-working beer and brats eating white electrician in Wisconsin weighting 235 pounds "in the moment" may consume more resources than a skinny Somali or eating at the margin Egyptian or the poor Haitian Mammy and her 9 hungry chilluns.....But the truth is Americans consume less energy than in the 70s, and less per capita than their 1950s ancestors.While Haitians, Somalis, and Egyptians have tripled the food and energy requirements they need.

Why?

Breeding rates, with more Mammys and 2nd Muslim wives churning out more carbon users and mouths to feed than they can handle without "free stuff" from evil white Westerners.

And it will get worse. Right now, the above mentioned 3 nations and 60 others are dependent on food aid - from the surplus that the energy intensive infrastructure and high energy use agriculture and transportation systems done by people like the evil white Wisconsin electrician that weighs and appalling 235 pounds (stealing the carbon use a Haitian great-grandmother and her 56 descendents all on welfare - need!)

The average global body weight is 138 pounds, but for North America, the average weight is 178.

Does this figure allow for the fact the the proportion of children is much higher globally than in North America (median global age 26.9 years vs. 36.9 years here)?

The best way to measure how much the fatties consume is to measure how much they spend. Do fat Americans spend more than skinny Americans?

This strikes me as one of those "back of the envelope" studies that extrapolates numbers based on assumptions, and not on real research. You know, the kind of engineering study that demonstrates that a 40-foot pterosaur is impossible just before a 45-footer is unearthed.

Update: I read the paper, and guess what? They did not allow for the fact that a greater proportion of the global population is children than in North America. Am I psychic, or what?

I wonder if this calculation was adjusted for the fact that outside of the U.S, a larger portion of the population are small children, doing nothing but consuming resources, hiding in cornfields and killing adults with extreme prejudice.

It takes 3-5 small starving children to equal the weight of one American adult, and then kill that adult, who planted that corn for them to hide in.

Looks like everyone here immediately saw the flaw in this calculation, but I bet on lefty blogs they are hand wringing about fat Republicans. I don't like fat Republicans either, but what about Rosie O'Donnell? - yea, that's just wrong in a global sense. She's gotta go.

I am privileged to be lean, and that's unfair. To me, I mean. They're going to start taxing soda, cars, bacon, and who the hell knows what else because the number of slothful slobs who over-indulge keeps increasing. I'm a Pepsi fiend but indulge in moderation. Ditto bacon. Really? I should pay more for soda because Vivian Goldstein of Parma, Idaho, standing 5'4" at 210 lbs, can't say no?

Why don't we tax by weight? Once a year, everyone makes a trip to Nebraska to be weighed in front of the entire nation, and they're taxed accordingly. The shame might even provoke people to change their habits. Or tax shoes, which I'm sure wear out much faster under the duress of robust figures so is an appropriate thing to tax.

I'm Coketown and I approve this message. Paid for by Coketown for Congress 2012. >:(

But, on the other hand, who cares? Do you realize that since the heady environmentalist days of the Cuyahoga River fire, the Environmentalist Industry has not been right about one blessed threat of environmental catastrophy. Why would anyone in their right mind pay any attention at all to these clowns?

No one is allowed to drive the Subaru Outback 3.6r (curb weight 3,609 lbs). Maybe there should be an HOV exception. But not for fat people, right? And not for kids either, except for the one you're allowed. The extra seats go to vegetarians.

"Make fat people climb hills and give them rides down, as a source of renewable power."

I don't know if you thought of that yourself, but I think it's pure genius. Even just have such a thing installed on your home stairways. They walk up to bed at night, ride down in the morning and the power is used to make pancakes. Renewable indeed!

For most of human history, hunger has been the biggest problem. Now we have enough food that large numbers of people are getting larger and larger. Could it be that the Malthusians are looking for something else to do?

"Or tax shoes, which I'm sure wear out much faster under the duress of robust figures so is an appropriate thing to tax."

My husband has shoes from his high school days (9 years ago) that are still in good shape. I had a pair of trail shoes I ran down in 3 months (go-lites. fun to buy once.). I'm little, but I'm hard on shoes.

"if these oversize people are in the U.S., they're going to move around in cars, and the more weight they move, the more fossil fuel they consume, the bigger the carbon footprint. So extra weight in America has a greater environmental effect than extra weight in places where people don't engage in so much commuting and traveling. "

I really hope this is a joke. It's hard to tell these days with the craziness surrounding "Catastrophic Global Warming."

Keep in mind that while the liberals are exoriating the fat, evil white people sucking up food and spweing carbon....besides the utter refusal to mention the world's carbon use is now driven by 3rd world breeding rates and 3rd World industrialization....

The liberal guilt trip SPECFICALLY exempts the black women that now outweigh most adult hogs fattened for market....and all those blob kids that have ballooned under "free school lunches, free school juice, free food at home and in restaurants from foodstamps."

2. That and poverty ....because when you are poor, it DRIVES you to buy fries and fried chicken and ice cream and evil soda - instead of more nutritous carrot sticks and organic baby arugula.

3. Because blacks suffer more than anyone through no fault of their own - liberals have started a program to have taxpayers pay for "minority owned fruit and vegetable shoppes" in the inner cities...with prices further subsidized by evil white taxpayers.

" and the more weight they move, the more fossil fuel they consume, the bigger the carbon footprint"

The same argument goes for the paper bags vs nylon bags (a paper bag is several times heavier, on top of all the cut trees to produce them). However, envirojunkies still consider paper bags more environmentaly friendly.

I'm not huge, but I am of white northern European heritage, so I am not tiny. I've been to Japan multiple times, and being in a crowd made me feel like an ogre at my 5'4", 130 pounds. Many adult Japanese women are literally the size of my (very healthy) ten year old daughter. Not to mention I've also spent a lot of time around Filipino people, who are similarly sized; I'm not sure I've seen a woman much over five feet and around a hundred pounds, or a man much more than five six and maybe 140.

I have gotten to the point that when I hear about a "carbon footprint", I pretty much automatically figure that whoever is talking at that point, is selling me a bill of goods. The further we get from ClimateGate, the more AGW seems like it is accepted common wisdom.

My view, as always, is that when the leaders of the carbon movement start acting like they believed in CO2 usage as real problem, I will revisit my position. And, we can start at the top, with the CinC using AF1 like a personal auto, criss-crossing the country constantly to raise campaign contributions.

All you have to do to remain skeptical is to remember "Hopenhagen", where private jets were parked two countries away, because they had run out of parking spaces for them in Denmark.

The other thing to keep in mind, and how you know this is bogus, is to keep in mind that obese people don't live as long as people of normal weight. The fatter you are, the shorter your life expectancy. And, yes, the lower the amount of social security that you will collect (or, more likely, never collect).

So, until they start factoring in life expectancy into this, I will consider it to be a bogus statistic.

When it comes to overweight, so much seems to be in the eyes of the beholder.

I have spent much of June in NW Montana, but still officially reside in the Colorado mountains west of Denver. Big difference. Last summer, my kid spent in Boulder, CO, and we got there the day of the Bolder Boulder. Scary - you felt obese if your BMI was over maybe 10%.

So, last night as I was leaving the Town Pump (local gas station/convenience store/casino), pickup pulled up next to me, and the couple in the front must have weighed north of 500 lbs between them. And, I realized how different it was from the ski community I normally live in. Up here, and, I think through a lot of rural America, a lot of the population seems to be overweight. Sometimes, as there, grossly and morbidly so.

A lot of things go into that. One may be that eating is social, and there is a lot of eating. Made sense when everyone worked on the farms from dawn to dusk. But, also, the food tastes a lot better - through a good part of the year, the veggies here are home grown (in an acre sized garden) and the beef is to die for, since it was raised maybe 10 miles down river from here, and traded for hay. No hormones, no feed lots, and the best food.